Dragon's Lair Cinematronics Inc., 1983, pp. 6-9 The connector from the DL CPU to the disk player is composed of a ribbon cable, a 24-pin DIP ribbon connector, and a 24-pin Centronics ribbon connector. The #1 wire of the ribbon cable may go to the #1 pin of the centronics connector, but then must connect to the #12 pin on the 24- pin DIP connector. Yes, surprise me, but the cable is reversed. LDV1000 connection DL M/B connection (Pioneer manual description DL manual schematics) DIO1 1 12 D0 DIO2 2 11 D1 DIO3 3 10 D2 DIO4 4 9 D3 5 8 6 7 Ready Command Strobe 7 6 Ready (tied together) 8 5 Gnd 9 4 1 3 Status Strobe 11 2 Enter Gnd 12 1 Gnd DIO5 13 13 D4 DIO6 14 14 D5 DIO7 15 15 D6 DIO8 16 16 D7 Enter Signal 17 17 Int/Ext Gnd 18 18 Gnd 19 19 Gnd 20 20 Gnd 21 21 Gnd 22 22 Gnd 23 23 Gnd 24 24 Gnd Blind Guy writes: "Anyway, with a disc in the player and the lid closed, power up the game and the player. You should immediately hear 1 short beep, then after 15 seconds you should hear another short beep. Right at the second beep is when the player is initialized and sent the play command. You should hear the disc start to spin up to speed (1800 RPM!) after which the laser carriage will move to start playing the disc from the begining. 15 seconds after the second beep will be a 3-tone beep at which time the attract sequence starts to play (now the game is fully initialized and ready for play). Listen closely to the player when it is initialized. If the disc spindal cannot spin or does not spin up to speed fast enough, the player shuts down. Also, if the carriage cannot move or cannot "find" the begining of the disc, the player shuts down and the spindal stops. These players are really quite reliable once they are properly cleaned and maintained. Out of seven LDV1000's that I had, only two of them could not be made to work because of corrosion from water on the PCB's. The player's EPROM revision sould be "1001". The LDV1001 player came out after the LDV1000 and is identical, but has a faster seek time (a benefit for games like Dragon's Lair). Now onto the DL main board itself. These boards are really bullet proof. Although I have seen several J1 sockets that were loose or bad causing erratic laserdisc control. The "W1" jumper on the board must be OPEN to use the LDV1000 player. Here are the dip switch setting that I use: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 SW2(A) (1=on) 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 (0=off) 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 SW1(B) 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0" After the CPU is powered on, the display board will show some code such as 15EE in the player 2 display, and finally settle into operation where the credits display just shows two zeros (00). About 5 sec.s after this, is when the LDV1000 is initialized to power up. The disk will spin up, and try to seek, as Chris describes above. The EPROM in the LDV1000 had a label on it, something like: Z03-1001-GYW-V2.0, so if YOU are ever in doubt about whether you have the right control board CPU you can cross-check this. The last hint at operation was from Jim Calore of the Star Tech Journal, he writes: "The LDV1000 player's most likely failure during the earning life of Dragon's Lair was the optics. The players needed frequent attention. Cleaning the mirrors and lenses got some of 'em working. But, beyond the simple cleaning maintenance, mirror and optic alignments were necessay. Not particularly hard to do, but it required a jig (test shops have 'em)... without the test jig for alignment, it's impossible. For older (age of actual running time) players, the laser diode itself simply became too weak to operate properly..." So after this input, you should all have an idea of whether you have an LDV1000 that can work or not! As far as the CPU goes, there are umpteen jumpers to add to the older rev. boards that came out for the PR7820 that WILL modify it enough to work with the LDV1000, (as well as modify the sound circuit). I cannot even BEGIN to go into them as they are much too detailed, suffice it to say, that with any style Starcom CPU and the rev. "F" DL code (four EPROMs instead of five), you can get it to work with an LDV1000 player. When I get my manual from Jim, I will be able to pass on a copy of the jumpers to those of you who need the info. To use a regular video monitor, you will need the NTSC decoder board for the video output from the player. With a regular TV, this should not be necessary, so consider it optional, it has no input from the CPU board at all. As far as the digital display from the CPU, this too is optional, as long as you don't care to know about status output, player score, and credits left. It would be nice to have one, and the I/F cable between the CPU and the Status Display card is only a straight through ribbon cable between two identical 16-pin dual-row ribbon connectors. No inverting, no tricks.... Lastly, the power connector to the CPU. A big hassle to find, but straight forward enough, if you can secure the proper power supply to give you the +5, and +25 volts. Now this too is optional; the +25 volts, that is; it is only used for the sound amplification circuit. Before I describe the pinouts, I might suggest that if you use your television for the NTSC output for video, you might also use it for the sound amplification by plugging the audio output from the LDV player to the TV and using the volume control there. According to the schematics, you may be loosing some beeps generated by the CPU, but, I assume these would be minimal (THIS IS JUST A GUESS). The power connector has pinouts like: 1 joystick right 2 player 1 button 3 +5 4 +5 5 joystick left 6 player 2 7 Gnd 8 Gnd 9 joystick down 10 coin 1 11 Gnd 12 Gnd 13 joystick up 14 coin 2 15 Gnd 16 left sound in 17 aux 3 (unused in DL) 18 (unused) 19 Gnd 20 left speaker out 21 aux 2 (unused in DL) 22 aux 5 (unused in DL) 23 Gnd 24 right sound in 25 aux 1 (unused in DL) 26 aux 4 (unused in DL) 27 Gnd 28 right speaker out 29 joystick action 30 +25v 31 Gnd 32 Gnd 33 coin counter out 34 +25v 35 Gnd 36 Gnd -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part III: REVISED GAME OPTIONS (To be used with games containing Revision A, B, C, or D PROMS) The following game options are controlled by Dip Switches 1 and 2 on the main CPU board: I. Attract Mode and Joystick Sound II. Number of Coins Required for One Credit III. Number of Dirks per Credit and Length of Play IV. Playtest and Diagnostic V. Difficulty Level VI. Pay-As-You-Go Play Some options are controlled by individual switch settings, others by combinations of switch settings. Points B0 through B7, marked in white on the PC board, correspond to switches 1 through 8 respectively on Dip Switch 1. Points A0 through A7 correspond to switches 1 through 8 respectively on Dip switch 2. BEFORE ADJUSTING SWITCHES, TURN POWER OFF AND UNPLUG POWER CORD. A. ATTRACT MODE AND JOYSTICK SOUND POINT POSITION FUNCTION ------------------------------------------------------------- B0 OFF Sound on every 8th attract mode sequence. B1 OFF No sound during attract mode sequences. B3 OFF Joystick feedback sound on. ------------------------------------------------------------- B. NUMBER OF COINS REQUIRED FOR ONE CREDIT NOTE: one credit = one game SWITCH COMBINATION ------------------| NUMBER OF COINS REQUIRED A1 A0 | FOR ONE CREDIT ---------------------------------------------------- ON ON 2 ON OFF 3 OFF ON 4 OFF OFF Not used. ---------------------------------------------------- C. NUMBER OF DIRKS PER CREDIT and LENGTH OF PLAY POINT POSITION NUMBER OF DIRKS PER CREDIT --------------------------------------------------------- A5 ON 3 A5 OFF 5 B2 OFF Unlimited Dirks for testing purposes. A4 OFF 2 credits at all times/free play. --------------------------------------------------------- D. PLAYTEST AND DIAGNOSTIC POINT POSITION FUNCTION --------------------------------------------------------------------- A3 OFF Playtest Switch for engineering use. A7 First ON, Diagnostics. To run diagnostics, set A7 to the then OFF. ON position, and power up the game. Wait until you hear two beeps. The second beep indicates that the disc player has been initialized. After the second beep, turn A7 to OFF, and run diagnostics. To rerun diagnostics, press the RESET button, Sw 3 on the PC board. --------------------------------------------------------------------- E. GAME DIFFICULTY LEVELS SWITCH COMBINATION ----------------------| A2 B4 B7 | DIFFICULTY LEVEL -------------------------------------------------------------- ON/OFF ON/OFF OFF Easy. ON OFF ON Difficulty is dependent upon player's ability. Easy at the onset of every game, play automatically increases in difficulty when a player survives 9 consecutive sequences of challenges. ON ON ON Difficulty is dependent upon player's ability. Easy at the onset of every game, play automatically increases in difficulty when a player survives 5 consecutive sequences of challenges. -------------------------------------------------------------- F. PAY-AS-YOU-GO PLAY OPTIONS SWITCH COMBINATION -------------------------------------| A0 A1 A6 B5 B7 | OPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ON/OFF ON/OFF ON ON/OFF ON/OFF Pay-as-you-go setting is off. A specific number of coins must be deposited before game play begins. Game then plays from start to finish without inter- ruptions. ON ON OFF ON ON Game play stops once, 2/3 of the way to the dragon's lair. At this time, the player must deposit more money if he wishes to continue. After the required amount of money is deposited, play resumes from the interruption point. If the player has less than three Dirks at the point of interruption, he receives one additional Dirk when play resumes. In this option, the game ends when the player finishes the dragon's lair sequence. ------------------------------- ON ON OFF ON OFF Game play stops once, 2/3 of the way to the dragon's lair. At this time, the player must deposit more money if he wishes to continue. After the required amount of money is deposited, play resumes at the interruption point. The player receives no additional Dirks in this option. The game ends when the player finishes he dragon's lair sequence. -------------------------------- ON ON OFF OFF ON Game play stops at three regular intervals. At each pause, the player must deposit more money if he wishes to continue. After the required amount of money is deposited, play resumes at the interruption point. If the player has less than 3 Dirks at the point of interrup- tion, he receives one additional Dirk when play resumes. In this option, the game does not end after the dragon's lair sequence. Instead, after the dragon's lair sequence, the player must deposit additional coins to prolong play. Play begins again at the first sequence. (No extra Dirks are awarded after the dragon's lair sequence). -------------------------------- ON ON OFF OFF OFF Game play stops at three regular intervals. At these times, the player must deposit more money if he wishes to continue. After the required amount of money is deposited, play resumes at the interruption point. In this option, the player receives no additional Dirks at any time. The game does not end after the dragon's lair sequence. Instead, after the dragon's lair seauence, the player may deposit additional coins to prolong play. Play be- gins again at the first sequence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------